Crowd-Pleasing Christmas Sides

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Unlike the Thanksgiving feast, where turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes are pretty much guaranteed year after year, the menu for Christmas dinner is more flexible and can be more fun. You get to make what your family loves most — a big old-school ham, shrimp scampi, rack of lamb, whatever — and no one will judge. But as at Thanksgiving, sides (and ideally a plethora of them) are key. To help you choose your holiday lineup, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite traditional and unconventional side dishes.

If this year’s feast involves prime rib, you’re going to want Yorkshire pudding. Seriously, you don’t want those flavorful pan drippings to go to waste. The addition of chopped herbs to the batter is a simple but major upgrade.

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Give Brussels sprouts and baby red-skinned potatoes a special holiday touch by coating them in a buttery, thyme-infused honey glaze. If you’re still deciding on what to make as your main dish, consider the impressive
Rosemary-Salted Standing Rib Roast that Food Network Magazine made to be served along with this colorful side.

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Rather than using Gruyère, a popular cheese choice for gratins, Bobby Flay uses a combination of Monterey Jack and goat cheese. For his recipe, you don’t need to make a roux or dirty a bunch of pots and pans — just pour heavy cream over cauliflower florets in a casserole dish, toss with cheese and bake until bubbly.

It seems hard to get excited about a salad when the table is set with so many decadent dishes. But Marcela Valladolid’s bright and citrusy salad is a fresh and welcome counterpoint to all the rich and heavy flavors of the big feast.